Buildview

A Sublime Text plugin to show build output in a view.

In Sublime Text, build results are shown in a fixed horizontal panel; you can't drag it to put it vertically next to your code, like in Eclipse, VS.

With this plugin, like any other view, you can put your build results where you want:

This is super useful if you are repeatedly running a program on your code/ script and want to have its output handy. (You probably already have a .sublime-build or build_systems entry in your .sublime-project.)

The core functionality is done in pipe_views.PipeViews, an abstraction allowing Unix-like “pipes” to be created between Views in Sublime.

Installation

1. Install via Package Control or git clone into your Packages folder (you can browse to it via Preferences -> Browse Packages).
2. Ensure your build system is set up correctly (eg. Python in the case of the screenshot above).
3. That's it, you should see build output by pressing the shortcut key to Build (eg. Ctrl-B or ⌘-B).

Custom Build Key Bindings

If you have different shortcuts for launching builds, you need to modify your .sublime-keymap files, as this plugin comes baked with configuration to hook on to the default Sublime Text keyboard shortcuts for launching builds. These bindings must have the following context:

"context": [{"key": "build_fake", "operator":"equal", "operand":true}]

For example, say you have a key binding for F13 to build:

{
  "keys": ["f13"],  "command": "build",
},

To configure it to trigger the Buildview plugin, change it like:

{
  // the usual config...
  "keys": ["f13"],  "command": "build",
  // ...this is the extra bit
  "context": [{"key": "build_fake", "operator":"equal", "operand":true}]
},

Configuration

Several aspects of the plugin's behaviour can be changed as detailed below. They can be changed on a per-view basis via the Command Palette in either the view source code or with build output, or through settings under "buildview".

Note: it seems settings set via Command Palette are persisted through sublime exits/launches, so you might not have to edit the JSON .sublime-settings files.

Disabling

Command Palette: - Disable/Enable buildview for this window

key: "buildview.enabled" values: true/false

Sublime's settings hierarchy is respected. So you could, for example, enable the plugin only for selected projects, by setting "enabled" to false in Packages/User/Preferences.sublime-settings, and set it to true in your .sublime-project.

For example, you can add this to your Preferences.sublime-settings:

{
    ...
    "buildview.enabled": false
    ...
}

Then in the project's .sublime-project file:

{
    ...
    "folders": [...],
    "settings": {
        "buildview.enabled": true,
        "buildview.scroll": "top"
    }
    ...
}

("scroll" added for demonstration; for details on "scroll", refer below.)

Output scrolling

Command Palette: - Build output always at top - Build output always at end - Build output stays at same position

key: "buildview.scroll"

values: - "top" - "bottom" - "last"

default: "bottom"

The plugin can scroll the output to the top, bottom, or the position before the current build was launched. The default is to scroll to the bottom (ie. continually show fresh output as it is emitted).

“Save changes?” warning

key: "buildview.silence_modified_warning"

values: true/false

default: true.

Since version 90e2365182e9566b2fa79dd7dc79d6b0d7e433f6 (Package Control: 2014.01.27.15.16.48), closing the build output view, directly, or indirectly, eg. by exiting Sublime Text, no longer causes a “Save changes?” warning to be displayed.

If you wish to have the old behaviour (of having a warning displayed), set to false.

Suppress build results panel

The built-in build results view will display momentarily. To disable this, use the User preference setting:

{
    ...
    "show_panel_on_build": false,
    ...
}

Known Issues/TODO

• pin/unpin location, so that subsequent builds scrolls to the same location
• build view is “forgotten” after restarting Sublime
• improve disabling/enabling options (eg whitelists, blacklists)
• improve namespacing of settings into a dictionary, once sublime supports merging of settings dictionaries through the hierarchy. For example, if buildview hypothetically read settings from a dictionary, and you had in your Preferences.sublime-settings

{
       ...
       "buildview": {
           "enabled": false,
           "scroll": "top"
       }
       ...
   }

and you then did this in the project's .sublime-project file

{
       ...
       "folders": [...],
       "settings": {
           "buildview": {
               "enabled": true
           }
       }
       ...
   }

buildview would behave as though the "scroll" setting was not defined because sublime does not automatically merge settings dictionaries through the settings hierarchy, so the "scroll" setting does not bubble up.

Pull requests welcome!

Hacking notes

• after editing pipe_views.py, restart Sublime or re-save commands.py for the changes to take effect.
• who's view is it anyway? A variety of names are used for views in the source code, according to their different roles:
  • source view: the built-in view that shows up when you click Show Build Results
  • destination view: the view that mirrors the build output, the one with the title “Build Output”
  • otherwise, a view should generally refer to one holding the source for the build

Donate

If you liked this plugin, you can donate here: